The battle's done, and we kind of won, so we sound our victory cheer: where do we go from here?
... a blog by Marc Lynch

December 31, 2008

The other day I pointed out the Arab political divisions over the response to Gaza. It might be interesting to show how this plays out in one of the key interpretive struggles in the Arab public sphere (and not only Arab, of course): whether to define the current Israeli attack as against "Gaza" or "Hamas." The stakes are clear. If the attack is defined as against "Gaza", then what follows is solidarity with the Palestinians and demands to stop the killing. If the attack is defined as against "Hamas", then what follows is the division of Arab opinion along sharply polarized lines defined by their views towards the Islamist movement. Who's winning? Thus far, "Gaza" in a landslide... but just as in the 2006 Hezbollah war, the 2008 Iraqi Basra campaign, and all other such battles the interpretive struggle will continue long beyond the hostilities.

The "Hamas" frame is being pushed by Israel, the United States, the Egyptian government, Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, parts of the Saudi media and generally the familiar quarters of the "official Arab order". While they can't ignore the destruction in Gaza, their focus is primarily on Hamas's "irresponsibility"
for breaking the cease-fire, and on its alleged alliances with a variety of enemies of this official order: Iran, Hezbollah, the
Muslim Brotherhood. For example, here's the lead story on the crisis on the Saudi al-Arabiya right now, showcasing Hamas missiles, not suffering Gazans:

The competing frame focuses on the mass human suffering at the hands of Israeli military assault and the inaction on the part of Arab governments. Thus far, the "Hamas" frame has been absolutely swamped by the "Gaza" frame. The visuals in the Arab media show endless pain, sufffering, and trauma for Gazans of all stripes. Al-Jazeera has taken the lead in pushing the images and the frame, but it is far more pervasive than that -- and extends far, far beyond the "pro-Iran" or "Islamist" forces to which the first camp prefers to assign it. Almost every newspaper features front page images of devastation in Gaza, imagery which overwhelms the carefully calculated political arguments of the official Arab camp. The language of choice throughout the media is "massacre", "slaughter", "assault". Here are just a few examples from today's editions of Jordan's semi-official al-Rai, Lebanon's al-Safir, and the Saudi pan-Arab al-Hayat:

It remains to be seen how much this matters, of course, and skepticism runs deep. Anyone who lived through the fierce protests during the second Intifada in 2000, the Israeli re-occupation of the West Bank in 2002, or the invasion of Iraq in 2003 will remember well the rising force of popular protest at those moments, the expectations of dramatic change, the perception of regimes on the brink, the empowered public opinion, the satellite television arguments, the declarations of the final collapse of the Arab official order. And here we still are.

I do think that public opinion matters, at least indirectly in terms of shaping the terms of Arab politics, even if governments don't fall, treaties aren't broken or war declared. A whole industry of 'public diplomacy' and 'wars of ideas' is based on the concern that anti-American attitudes matter, for instance. Here, the anti-Hamas camp has already been forced to bow to this frame rhetorically, with the Mubarak demanding Israel immediately end
its "monstrous" assault, and the GCC calling for an immediate end to
the violence. The limits of their concessions can be seen in the fact that they continue to blame Hamas for the crisis, though, and
refuse to do anything substantive in response (calling for an Arab
summitt to eventually be held, or photo opportunities of blood
donations don't really count). Their media are trying to portray those
governments as acting effectively, but that doesn't seem to be getting
much traction with a deeply skeptical and outraged public. If the crisis grinds on, we'll see whether these regimes are forced to start making more concessions to public views --- but most of the real impact will only be felt long-term.

December 30, 2008

King Abdullah of Jordan has just taken the remarkable step of firing his powerful head of General Intelligence in the middle of a major regional -- and potentially domestic -- crisis. Nabil Ghishan, a Jordanian journalist, explains in al-Hayat that the reason for the firing of Mukhabarat head Mohammed al-Thahbi was his role in a controversial rapprochement with Hamas over the last few months. Presumably his replacement, Mohammed Raqad -- whose prior assignment was in the northern city of Irbid -- will have fewer ideas about outreach to Hamas. But more broadly, the move suggests a panic at the heart of the Hashemite establishment over the ramifications of the spiraling Gaza crisis. It's no accident that King Abdullah and Queen Rania have been urgently calling for Israel to "end the violence immediately", even as fellow pro-U.S. autocrats in Cairo and Riyadh hedge in anticipation of Hamas taking damage. There is no way for Jordan to stay on the sidelines of an Israeli-Palestinian crisis - and this one may prove more dangerous than others.

The intensity of Jordanian public opinion on Gaza should not be surprising. Without resorting to the journalistic shorthand of assigning a percentage of the population as "Palestinian" (given decades of intermarriage and deep divides in the life-circumstances of, say, the impoverished residents of the camps and the wealthy Amman bourgeoisie), the Jordanian and Palestinian populations are deeply interconnected. The Jordanian public has been extremely vocal, with protests in the streets and burning Israeli flags in the Parliament. Normally level-headed commentators have been calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, the severing of ties with Israel, the "removal" of all things Israeli from the Kingdom, and more. Unlike during the Hezbollah war of 2006, there's a consensus in Jordan spanning liberals, Islamists, and conservatives over Gaza... with even those who have written extremely hostile commentary about Hamas in the last few years now lambasting Israel and defending Gaza. (And some bloggers are helping to organize a food drive -- good for them!)

Expect anti-Americanism in Jordan (and across the region) to spike again as the U.S. is blamed for allowing the Israeli offensive, just as during the 2002 Israeli re-occupation of the West Bank, and for moderate voices to be marginalized or radicalized. The King is following the popular mood this time, to a point (with an ostentatious picture of him donating blood gracing the front pages of the papers). But even as the influential columnist Samih al-Mayateh writes that the people and the Palace are united, it's clear to all that the government has offered only words and has not acted on any of the popular demands.

The domestic context of the regional crisis is terrible. The economic crisis has badly hurt all sectors of the Jordanian population, while rumors of corruption and official incompetence have been rife. The Parliament is widely derided. The relatively new Prime Minister seems generally respected, but doesn't have a great deal of independent weight. The Muslim Brotherhood, which seemed to have lost its way in the face of intense regime pressures over the last few years, has of late seemed to have found its feet under the leadership of the pro-Hamas "hawk" recently elected as it head. Back in October, the government had initiated a surprising, if limited, rapprochement with the Brotherhood -- and Hamas -- which now seems to be done. I expect that the Jordanian regime will most likely ride out this round of domestic anger as it always has before -- but it seems clear that the leadership is worried about the rising wave of anger and the possibility of violence migrating across the Jordan River. Whatever Abdullah's real feelings about Hamas, it seems likely that he's sincere about desperately wanting the crisis to be over and is trying to find ways to limit the impact at home. Replacing his mukhabarat chief in the middle of the crisis suggests that desperation is turning to panic.

UPDATE: a well-informed observer adds:

Firstly, the timing is indeed strange, in particular if the
King wants to calm down a domestic sphere which appears even more united around
a pro-Hamas front today compared to 2006, then it is odd to fire THE figure
representing a link between the regime and Hamas. From what I have heard it may
instead be the outcome of pressure from Egypt which is pissed at yesterday's
demonstrations in front of the Egyptian embassy with anti-Mubarak slogans. This
is unprecedented and in the spring a planned demonstration in front of the Egyptian
embassy was banned. ....

Secondly, as for the decision as such – and not the
timing - to fire Dhahabi, what I have heard it is a combination of a number of
factors related very much to the domestic sphere and less to the current crisis
– still the timing is strange. Those I talk to have for a while expected
that one of the Dhahabis had to quit as two brothers in prominent positions (if
the PM can be labelled as such) were one too much. At the same time it is
suggested that it is a kind of payback from the King to GID and the PMs
opposition to [Bassem] Awadallah, who had to leave the court back in September. And
related, it is said to be the price PM Dhahabi has to pay to make the last
purging of pro-Awadallah people in the upcoming re-shuffle of the government. This
is probably not the whole story, but adds some further dimension to this
strange story.

Almost every Arab media outlet, even those bitterly hostile to Hamas, is running bloody images from Gaza. But as with the 2006 Hezbollah war, Arab responses are enmeshed within deeply entrenched inter-Arab conflicts, dividing sharply between pro-U.S. regimes and the vast majority of expressed public opinion. One key divide revolves around the portrayal of the Arab regimes, with one side blasting Arab governments for what they are calling complicity with the Israeli attack and the other trying to create the impression that Arab leaders are working to formulate a collective response. As protests escalate, this dividing line will likely intensify.

This doesn't mean that the Arab response has been unified. In general, the responses have mirrored the faultlines which have dominated Arab politics for the least few years -- seen most vividly in the sharp Arab media divide during the early days of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war. As in the summer of 2006, many U.S.-aligned regimes and their media are attacking Hamas and tacitly approving of the Israeli action (and, particularly in the case of Egypt, have been themselves actively working against Hamas for years). Al-Sharq al-Awsat editor Tareq al-Homayed, a reliable conduit for the views of the Saudi leadership, explicitly equates Hamas 2008 with Hezbollah 2006. Just as in the earlier conflict, where the war was initially blamed on Hezbollah's recklessness, Homayed suggests that Hamas should pay the price for its manifold sins. This equation between Hezbollah and the very Sunni Hamas, by the way, should reinforce my long-standing point that the "Sunni Axis" attacks on Hezbollah were always more about the regime/popular divide than about sectarianism, no matter how much they worked to inflame sectarianism in order to undermine support for Hezbollah and Iran.

One significant difference in the regional camps surrounding Hezbollah 2006 and Hamas 2008 is Jordan, which was firmly in the
Saudi-Egyptian camp against Hezbollah in 2006 but is walking a more
careful line today because of the unique issues posed by the
Hamas-Jordan relationship. More on that later. The Iraqi government, for its part, has condemned Israel's attack, and Foreign Minister Zebari told al-Jazeera that Iraq would support any Arab initiative to help Gaza.

There are already some cracks in the anti-Hamas front -- three years of the Hamas- Fatah conflict dividing Arab attitudes towards and Arab media coverage of Palestinian politics do not seem to have dulled the intensity of the response to the images of Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Here, it's instructive to compare Homayed's leader for al-Sharq al-Awsat (blaming Hamas and equating it with Hezbollah) with the leader by the editor of the Saudi-owned al-Hayat Ghassan Cherbel focused on stopping "the massacre" -- bemoaning the "monstrous attacks" and declaiming that there is no time to resolve deep inter-Arab conflicts before ending the killing in Gaza.

However
this round of violence ends -- and it's hard to see any scenario in
which it produces remotely positive results for anyone involved -- the
outcome at the regional level will likely be to further exacerbate
these conflicts and to undermine the chances for the incoming Obama
administration to make early progress. While Arab regimes will almost certainly survive the latest round of popular outrage, the regional atmosphere may prove less resilient. Syria has reportedly broken off its indirect peace
talks
with Israel, for instance. A bloody Hamas retaliation against Israelis seems highly likely, and if Abbas is seen as supporting the Israeli offensive against his political rivals then Hamas may well emerge from this even stronger within Palestinian politics. The offensive is highly unlikely to get rid of Hamas, but it will likely leave an even more poisoned, polarized and toxic regional environment for a new President who had pledged to re-engage with the peace process. Obama has scrupuously (and wisely) adhered to the "one President at
a time" formula in foreign policy up to this point... but you have to
wonder how long he can sit by and watch the prospects for meaningful
change in the region battered while the Bush administration sits by
and cheers.

December 27, 2008

The Arab public is expressing outrage over the Israeli bombing raids over Gaza. A significant portion of this outrage is reserved for Arab leaders, who have been largely silent and even -- in the eyes of many -- complicit in the attack. The picture below, of Egypt's Foreign Minister with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, has become a defining symbol of the campaign. While nobody much seems to be paying attention in a U.S. preoccupied by holidays and the transition, I'd advise watching whether long building Arab anger over the Gaza situation
explodes... especially in Egypt.

Two points of note. First, the Arab media seems to be dividing along now-familiar lines, with al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya exemplifying two very different approaches. If the bombing campaign is the preface to a wider Israeli
offensive in Gaza, it will interesting to track whether a divide in the Arab media emerges similar to the one during the first ten days or so of the 2006 Israeli-Hezbollah war. In that conflict, al-Arabiya and much of the Saudi, Egyptian and Jordanian semi-official media downplayed coverage of the war and largely blamed Hezbollah, while al-Jazeera went into full regional crisis mode. Today, I've been seeing blanket coverage of Gaza on al-Jazeera while on al-Arabiya's website this morning not one of the top five news stories dealt with Gaza. That's only an early indicator, but given the current political lines of conflict in the region, and Israeli diplomatic preparations for the offensive with Arab leaders, this may well happen again.

Second, keep an eye on Cairo. Egypt has been at the heart of the Arab anger over the evolving crisis. It's been the one enforcing the blockade, ignoring a rising chorus of public criticism at home and in the wider Arab world. Egyptian and Arab media and political forces have been lacerating the Mubarak regime for months over its enforcement of the blockade of Gaza. Today, the Muslim Brotherhood upped the ante by calling for a highly unusual public protest today to be led by Supreme Guide Mohammed Mehdi Akef -- announced in a blaring red banner atop its official website. Most likely, this will just be another symbolic protest, but it contributes to a crisis atmosphere and there's no telling how the various forces will react.

I'm happy to pass on this guest post from my friend and colleage Nathan Brown, an expert on Arab constitutional law, Palestinian politics, and Islamic movements at George Washington University. As with all guest posts, I do not necessarily agree or disagree with anything in it but am happy to pass on the thoughts of an accomplished scholar on the issue.

Guest Post: Hamas in Gaza: The Islamic Law That Wasn't

Nathan Brown

The combination of old and new media can sometimes create an echo chamber that magnifies inaccuracy rather than corrects it.
Recently, readers of the Jerusalem
Post and a selection of blogs and websites have learned that
Hamas-dominated Palestinian parliament has just adopted a draconian penal code
based on Islamic law. They have heard human rights organizations be
pressed—by Noah
Pollack and Martin
Peretz—for their failure to respond to the development. And Itamar Marcus and Barbara
Crook

have informed them that Hamas itself has lied about what the
parliament has done.

There are a few problems with this account. The parliament did not adopt the law. Human rights organizations have not ignored the matter. And Hamas did not lie. All this is clear from a careful and informed reading of the record.

A new urban legend seems to have been created. Urban legends are usually based on fact. There really is a New York City sewer system. There just aren’t any alligators in it. So what’s the kernel of truth here? And what’s the embellishment?

There is an effort to draft a penal code based on shari‘a and this is a significant development on many grounds. The pro-Hamas press in Gaza has reported on an effort to develop a new Palestinian criminal code based on Islamic law. When it campaigned in the 2006 parliamentary elections, Hamas (like many electoral Islamist movements recently) swore off immediate Islamization in its immediate legislative
agenda. Its deputies made clear that they saw other short-term
priorities. Adopting an Islamic criminal code would obviously be a big
shift here.
This is not only a shift in priorities; it also comes in one of the
most contentious areas possible. Most parliamentary Islamist movements shove
criminal law change far down their list of priorities for two reasons. First,
it is extremely controversial—they often have far more popular issues to
emphasize. Second, criminal law is a tough area—it is often a bit
harder to develop newer interpretations that seem more suitable for current
conditions.

This is a major project; it is not every day that a totally new criminal code is developed. Any effort to implement the law would greatly deepen the split between the West Bank and Gaza (the current draft is reported to claim to be applicable in all
the territories under the control of the Palestinian Authority, but the
Ramallah-based government would certainly ignore the new law). Interestingly, al-Hayat
headlined the territorial dimensions of the move—that it did
not apply to all of pre-1948 Palestine and therefore seemed to recognize the
territorial limitations of the PA—but neither the Post nor the bloggers picked up on this.

But the parliament hasn’t passed it. The speaker’s office says that the law has not been passed. The parliament’s sessions are public and well reported in pro-Hamas media—and those outlets reported no such parliamentary action. It would have been pretty hard to have passed a law by stealth. I’ve been trying to follow the
story very closely since it first hit the newspapers last month, but I’ve
seen nothing on it.

So why was it reported as approved by the parliament? Here is one place new and old media got a little sloppy. The Jerusalem Post story was based on a story
in al-Hayat. The al-Hayat story was
clearly based on a mistake. And it’s not hard to figure out the
error. One of their reporters got a copy of the draft that was being
prepared and mistakenly assumed that it had already been passed. This
was clear from a clarification
the paper issued the next day.
Noting that the speaker’s office denied the parliament had passed the
draft, al-Hayat claimed that the
copy it had obtained was gussied up as if it had been passed by the parliament.
But drafts produced by the Diwan al-Fatwa
wa-l-Tashri‘ (the Bureau of Legal Consultation and
Legislation, the PA body attached to the Ministry of Justice that is
responsible for drafting legislation) routinely appear this way.

The Post, to its credit, did
include the statement that “TheJerusalem Post could not verify
the veracity of the Al Hayat
report.” There were two reasons they could not verify it. First, they
have no correspondent on the ground in Gaza.
Second, it wasn’t true. But none of the bloggers quoting the Post quoted the hedge; they do not seem to
have noticed it.

So Hamas did not lie when it said the law had not been approved. The law is indeed being prepared (something nobody denied), but it is still at the drafting and discussion stage, and it still seems to be under discussion at the Diwan. In their article, Marcus and Crook produce a series of quotations they had translated from Palestinian press that they claim prove Hamas is lying. But instead the quotations support the interpretation I have just offered -- that the matter is still under discussion and has received no final approval by parliament. Marcus also throws in a gratuitous but curious mistranslation: he calls the Diwan the “Bureau of Islamic Law.” It is nothing of the kind. The mistake is natural—if you have a bad dictionary, a good imagination, or little knowledge of Palestinian politics. Marcus’s translators were probably misled by the word “fatwa” in the Diwan’s title—hence the translation as the “Bureau of Islamic Law.” But “fatwa” does not mean “Islamic law.” A fatwa is a nonbinding legal opinion—most often used in a shari‘a context, but in this case referring to positive rather than Islamic law. The Diwan is no more Islamic than the Ministry of Transportation.

What about the silence of human rights organizations? Well, in one sense they are
silent. They have had little to say about a parliamentary action that has
not been taken. But are they interested in the issue? Yes. They certainly have been following
it—as the original al-Hayat story
makes clear in its lede. And I might even hazard a guess that one local
human rights organization fed al-Hayat
the draft, but that is just speculation from the way the story is
written. When I first became aware of the criminal-law project last
month, I did notify someone at Human Rights Watch (neither Peretz nor Pollack
seem to think that contacting the organization was necessary before condemning
its silence). And I received an immediate reply that indicated that the
organization was indeed very interested. I have not seen an actual draft. If
someone gets a hold of a copy, I would suggest forwarding it on to Human Rights
Watch. And please cc me—I’d love to see it.

December 19, 2008

The United States Institute for Peace has just released a briefing entitled "Iraq in the Obama Administration" drafted by Daniel Serwer and Sam Parker. The report reflects a series of discussions by USIP's genuinely bipartisan Iraq group, a legacy of the Iraq Study Group (keeping in mind that "those whose names are listed at the end have participated one way or
another in the discussions on which the paper is based, but do not
necessarily agree with it in its entirety").

The report focuses on the need to pay careful attention to Iraq during the transition period and early months of the administration, a time when issues might be expected to fall between the cracks. I am not going to present the whole report here -- I agree with much but not all of it, and would have preferred some other points be more central, but I recommend that those interested in Iraq policy have a look at it. Some of its recommendations can't wait for the new team to mull over
-- such as the urgent need to quickly fill the key policy positions,
including Ambassador, or the need to be prepared for the provincial elections scheduled less than two weeks after the inauguration. Others will hopefully help prepare decision-makers for some important issues inevitably coming down the pike.

In the meantime, I would like to say a bit more about one issue, bouncing off of the first recommendation in the report (while saying, FWIW, that no inside information, animal testing, or
artificial growth hormones went into the writing of this post):

The President-elect has an opportunity to reconfigure the U.S./Iraq
relationship, relying in part on the SOFA. The Bush Administration
gave Prime Minister Maliki largely unconditional support from 2006
onwards, because the future of the political process was in doubt and
the overarching priority was for the government to stand up and fill
the security and governance void. Maliki became increasingly confident
that there was no alternative for the U.S. but to support him.

The time has come for the U.S. to take a more institutional approach
to support for Iraq, one in which Washington communicates clearly that
it will implement the SOFA respectfully, effectively and transparently
and that its support is not linked personally to the Prime Minister,
but is instead intended to help build a stable Iraq that meets
reasonable expectations:

Power sharing and integration of disenfranchised groups into government institutions;

Respect for basic human rights and the rule of law;

Resolution of disputed internal boundaries;

Cooperation with international efforts to fight terrorism.

This approach is not intended to restore U.S. influence, which
inevitably will continue to decline, but rather to use the influence
that remains most effectively in the pursuit of a future stable Iraq
that meets U.S. interests, which are broadly consistent with the
political objectives that the Iraqi parliament adopted when calling for
a referendum on the SOFA.

....

This meeting [with the Iraqi Presidency Council] should launch an on-going strategic dialogue through the
Higher Coordinating Committee created in the Strategic Framework
Agreement. President Obama should tell Iraqis clearly of his intent to
withdraw U.S. combat forces faster than the SOFA requires, subject to
adequate progress on political and security matters. As Vice
President-elect Biden is strongly associated in Iraqi minds with
proposals to partition Iraq, which are vigorously opposed in the Arab
population, it will be important to clarify that this is not Obama
Administration policy (based on the campaign statements of the
president-elect).

Let me put on my public diplomacy hat for a moment. Right now, in the absence of clear statements from a President-elect wisely determined to adhere to the 'one President at a time' rule, anxious Iraqis and Arabs, the American media, and those hoping to pre-emptively shape the new administration's policy are filling the void with a wild range of theories, projections, and suspicions. Contradictory comments from Gen. Ray Odierno and Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh have fueled these suspicions. A whole lot of Iraqis seem to think that the Biden Plan to partition Iraq is coming back or that there are secret riders to the SOFA/WA allowing permanent U.S. bases or that Obama has "abandoned" his commitment to withdraw from Iraq, to mention only three that I hear a lot. I believe that there is very little basis for most of what's circulating (in the U.S. or in Iraq) but in a sense that's the point -- that's what happens in the absence of good information.

This is a good example of where public diplomacy and foreign policy
come together -- by listening to what Iraqis are saying, and moving
quickly and judiciously to respond to those concerns, the
administration might be able to pre-empt the emergence of unnecessary
problems. Lord knows there will be enough real problems -- why add on popular fears of, say, the Biden Plan if there's nothing to it? Most policy types probably wouldn't see the point of denying the partition stories because nobody in the U.S. is really talking about it... but the fact that Iraqis are should be reason enough to take it on. The new administration could save itself a lot of headaches down the
road by addressing these fears and suspicions (and hopes) head on, saying
clearly what is and is not the new administration's policy and then living up to it in practice.

I'm not just talking about words, though. Words must be matched by deeds to be credible. Statements should be backed up with clear, strong, "costly signals" that demonstrate the seriousness of the public commitment to withdrawal, to Iraqi territorial unity, to respecting the terms of the SOFA (I expect an early challenge on the immunities question, for instance, probably with an arrest of some kind for which the new administration had best be well-prepared). Another example: I continue to argue that Obama should announce early, significant troop withdrawals in spite of the powerful internal pressures to postpone them. Early withdrawals would take advantage of the transition's unique, single opportunity to reshape the foundations of America's role in Iraq. They would demonstrate -- to Iraqis, Arabs, Iranians, and Americans alike -- that policy is really changing. They would force Iraqis to make the painful accommodations avoided for so long (particularly since the Political Reform Agreement passed alongside the SOFA/WA by the Iraqi Parliament lays out a remarkably comprehensive pathway to such political accord). They would likely help win Iraqi support for the SOFA/WA in the upcoming referendum. And, though this is less important to me, they would likely be politically popular at home. But above all, to get back to the original point, such costly, public steps would build credibility and go a long way towards reassuring skeptics and thus have a positive effect across a whole range of other related issues.

As the above chart shows, 70% of Americans think that bases in the Gulf are a fine idea. The UK and France are roughly evenly split (43-39 and 41-43, respectively), but 52% of Germans are opposed. Only 4% of Russians and 8% of Chinese approve -- ah, the smell of great power politics in the air. And then you get to the Arab and Muslim world: 11% of Jordanians approve, 6% of Turks, 4% of Palestinians, 5% of Indonesians, and a statistically insignificant number of Egyptians. A pity they didn't (couldn't?) ask the question in the Gulf itself... would be interesting to hear what the Kuwaitis, Qataris, Bahrainis -- or Iraqis -- in question have said about their "protectors".

Even allowing for the problems with such opinion surveys, these numbers should be sobering -- especially as they track with lots of other surveys about regional views of American foreign policy. Americans generally believe that their military presence in the Gulf represents an "international public good", protecting energy supplies and global stability, and consider their military hegemony to be cushioned by "soft power" through which American leadership is perceived as benevolent and desirable. Most of the world's publics, especially Arab and Muslim publics, don't seem to agree. Public diplomacy -- and grand strategy -- need to take such findings a bit more seriously.

TWO MORE UPDATES: Right on cue, "A vice
foreign minister and a leading naval strategist were quoted in Chinese
state media on Wednesday as saying that Beijing was close to mounting a
naval mission in the gulf." Great powers, state interests, and all that.

Meanwhile, Jon Alterman reads the NIC's Global Trends 2025 report and concludes (no idea how to find a direct link, sorry, but will add when one appears) that Gulf leaders reading the tea leaves are likely to conclude that "the United States sees their region become far less central to global security than it is now... [which] indicates a far weaker U.S. security commitment to the Gulf come 2025. Put bluntly, the report suggests that over the next two decades, the U.S. security commitment to the Gulf will shift from being a constant to a variable." He therefore expects Gulf leaders to rationally start looking around, "diversifying their strategic relationships" -- most likely with France, Russia, China, and India -- and seeking an accommodation with Iran.

December 15, 2008

The story of the day in Iraq is of course the shoe-throwing journalist, whose exploits have dominated the Arab media cycle and will be the enduring image of Bush's final official visit to Iraq. It would be a pity if that completely crowded out attention to the devastating report on the Central Criminal Court of Iraq released today by Human Rights Watch. Joseph Logan and Michael Wahid Hanna conclude after a rigorous investigation that the CCCI

is an institution that is
seriously failing to meet international standards of due process and fair
trials. Defendants often endure long periods of pretrial detention without
judicial review, and are not able to pursue a meaningful defense or challenge
evidence against them. Abuse in detention, typically with the aim of extracting
confessions, appears common, thus tainting court proceedings in those cases.

The report investigates a wide range of failures by the Court to adhere to international law or to its own rules, including dispassionate accounts of coerced confessions and secret witnesses. The report puts detail and texture on to an overarching sense of institutional dysfunction which should surprise no-one at this point.

It also notes the corrosive effects of the ongoing confusion over the relationship between MNF and Iraqi institutions:

Other failings reflect the fact that the Iraqi justice
system, and hence the CCCI, does not have jurisdiction over individuals taken
into custody by the US-led Multinational Force in Iraq (MNF). The MNF refers
only a small number of the persons it detains to the CCCI for prosecution, and
in those cases has exercised broad influence on proceedings since it provides
physical security and plays a dominant advisory role, though that influence is
less pronounced than in the court's early days. The refusal in particular of US
military officials involved in detention matters to honor hundreds of decisions
by the court to release detainees in US military custody has further undermined
respect for the Iraqi judicial system. (This report does not address the status
of detainees held by the US military as security detainees, except in the
context of their transfer to the CCCI for prosecution.)

Presumably, the SOFA/WA is meant to clear up some of these inconsistencies and confusions, but as with everything else in Iraq it remains to be seen whether implementation will follow legislation.

The report also offers some useful insights into the February 2008 General Amnesty Law, which was meant to be a key reconciliation initiative but instead has foundered at the level of implementation. I've long wondered about the disconnect between the ever-increasing number of cases processed under the amnesty and the miniscule number of people actually released from detention facilities (generating frequent complaints by Tareq al-Hashemi and other Sunni parties). Human Rights Watch notes that

The amnesty as passed would benefit persons held for more than six months
without an investigative hearing, or for more than a year without referral to a
court. Implementation, however, has lagged very seriously. The continued high
number of persons in detention facilities has put serious strain on the CCCI,
where dozens of judges hear thousands of cases a month, and further delayed
judicial review of detentions.

Approximately 96,000 cases had
been approved for amnesty by July 2008 by the judicial committee that reviews
applications, according to the Higher Judicial Council. As of September 2008,
an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 detainees in Iraqi facilities had been released
under the terms of the amnesty, most of them from facilities run by the
Ministry of Justice. A ministry official in October estimated that approximately 3,200 detainees had
been released from Ministry of Justice facilities in Baghdad, Diyala, Basra, Hilla, and elsewhee. The limited impact on the overall detainee population stems in part from the
fact that the vast majority of applicants approved for amnesty are not in
custody. As of May, prisoners and detainees accounted for about 25 percent of
68,796 approved applications; by September, that percentage stood at about 19
percent of 120,596 grants of amnesty. (Those at large or on bail make up the other categories of applicants. Grants
of amnesty relate to charges, rather than individuals, who may face multiple
charges.)

There's a lot more in the report, which should receive more attention than it is likely to get today without throwing a shoe.

December 11, 2008

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh spoke at the US Institute for Peace
yesterday, and is making the rounds of DC. He's made some news in his public remarks: in addition to calling for U.S. dialogue with Iran and pleading for American consultation with Iraqis over the pace and scope of troop withdrawals (see Spencer Ackerman for more), he announced (as far as I know, for the first time) an Iraqi proposal for an EU-style regional economic partnership building off of the existing Iraq and its Neighbors Group (grouping Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and -- possibly -- the other GCC states). He said that he had already spoken informally to Kuwait, Syria and Turkey about the idea, and -- as several audience members pointed out -- it's hard to imagine that the Iraqi government would propose something that hadn't already circulated through Tehran.

The proposal is obviously highly unlikely to go anywhere, given
regional politics, Iraqi domestic realities, and the implausibility
of any Arab government giving up sovereignty in any meaningful sense. But it's still
interesting to think about the reasons for the proposal and its
possible implications. The group's main purpose would seem to be to establish Iraq as the core of a new regional structure (Dabbagh said as much in his presentation). The inclusion of Turkey, for instance, may help Iraq with the Kurdish issue but makes little sense otherwise. A secondary purpose, however, is likely the search for an acceptable vehicle for reconciling the Iraqi government's relations with Iran and the U.S. while trying to establish itself as some kind of intermediary for, rather than a victim of, Saudi-Iranian competition.

The group most notably excludes Israel/Palestine and Egypt. To the extent that anyone pays attention to the proposal, I expect Amr Moussa and the Arab League to be extremely hostile, since it would undermine the Arab League (or what remains of it). Egypt will see this as an Iraqi attempt to undermine its leadership position in the Arab world (or what remains of it). Palestinians will very likely see the proposal as another step towards their marginalization as world attention inexorably shifts towards the Gulf. Dabbagh fielded a question about the exclusion of Israel by saying that it was limited to "Iraq's neighbors", but that doesn't stop the GCC states from being considered. Still, the proposed "region" does reflect a very real shift of power and global interest from the Levant to the Gulf.

While this particular proposal seems quite unrealistic, I do see merit in trying to somehow build on the Neighbors Group, which has had only limited impact thus far but could hopefully be revitalized by a new administration which actually believes in regional diplomacy. Including Iran within a regional security architecture should be a major strategic objective for the U.S. in some form or another as an endpoint for the President-elect's proposed tough dialogue and engagement with the Iranians. Some kind of GCC + 2 (Iraq and Iran) architecture seems like a more realistic objective here. But if Dabbagh's proposal at least sparks some creative strategic thinking about how Iraq and Iran might be re-integrated into the region then it will have served some purpose.

I'm still in full-scale end of semester crisis mode, but I'm delighted to pass along this commentary from a very well-placed observer who prefers to remain anonymous. It's extracted from a longer paper, which goes into far more detail on the issues in question. As with all guest posts, this represents his/her personal views with which I might or might not agree but which I certainly find interesting.

It is certainly cliché, but today’s interconnected world truly works in mysterious ways. On 11 July the world market price of oil peaked at $147 per barrel and Iraq was forecasting a $38-$50 billion budget surplus. The ensuing months saw a secret ballot vote in Parliament aimed at imposing power sharing on Kurds in Kirkuk, a tense standoff between Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Government of Iraq (GOI) military forces around the disputed city of Khanaqin, and an increasingly bellicose war of words between Baghdad and Erbil. The Shiite-Kurdish political alliance which has run post-2003 Iraqi politics appeared to be in the process of disintegrating and being replaced by an ugly and potentially dangerous Arab-Kurdish split.

However, in late November the GOI reportedly agreed to accept oil production for export from two of the KRG’s international oil contracts. On the face of it, with Arab-Kurdish relations having reached their post-war nadir, the prospects for agreement on such a contentious issue would seem to be virtually nil. Indeed, Prime Minister Maliki personally described all Kurdish oil contracts as unconstitutional for the first times only days before the agreement was reached. This apparent contradiction can be explained by the financial crisis and the cratering of the world oil price to below $50 per barrel earlier in November. Bottom line? A silver lining to the world-wide financial crisis may be progress towards Iraq’s Oil Law, agreement on which could help to define the place of Arabs and Kurds in Iraq.

An Oil Company

Iraq has been described as being founded as an oil company. The centrality of oil to the fabric of the Iraqi state is critical to understanding the depth of the issues involved in agreeing upon an Oil Law and the significance of the Iraqi Government’s acceptance of oil for export from selected Kurdish contracts. These contracts are not simply a technical or commercial matter, but rather are proxies for differing Arab and Kurdish conceptions of the Iraqi state.

The KRG’s leadership has sought a federal system for Iraq with maximum local autonomy and limits on the ability of the central government to exercise power. Local control of oil is seen as essential to enabling this autonomy, but the decentralization of oil revenues is also a mechanism to check the power of the central government by limiting its ability to finance a large army. The saliency of this issue is high after the Iraqi Army – peshmerga standoff in Khanaqin, recent reports that Iraq is purchasing weapons with oil monies, and Kurdish leaders publicly recalling how oil has been used to finance military campaigns against Kurds in the past. The treatment of oil is also existential for Arab Iraqis. Oil is perceived as intimately related to the territorial integrity of the country, and the manner in which it is handled as the determining factor as to whether the country stays together or breaks apart. This is not only because Kurdish control over their oil reserves could provide the financial basis for future Kurdish independence, but also because it could set a precedent or model for future oil-rich regions in Iraq’s south.

The Payroll

If Iraq is an oil company, to borrow a phrase from the post-financial crisis lexicon, what concerns Iraqi leaders in the new oil price environment is their ability to “make payroll”. Iraq is uniquely dependent upon oil revenues to fund its budget, with IMF statistics indicating that 95% of expenditures being financed by oil monies in the 2008 Budget. With oil prices declining by two-thirds as of early November, Iraq has already cut its draft 2009 Budget by $10-$15 billion and Iraqi political leaders are voicing concern that if prices remain at the current levels, Iraq may exhaust its financial reserves and be unable to meet certain obligations by mid-2010 or early 2011.

The area of the budget to keep an eye on is the operating budget, Iraq’s “payroll”. This is because almost the entirety of the Iraqi population relies in some way on government support from the operating budget, which funds salaries, pensions, transfers (including food rations) and subsidies on basic services. In evaluating the political implications of the financial crisis for Iraq, it should be understood that while reductions in capital expenditures will damage the country’s development prospects, it is the operating budget through which Iraq’s political parties fulfill the patronage function that is key to their power bases. The political significance of the operating budget is made clear by an examination of what Iraq’s government actually spends money on (as opposed to what it allocates in its budgets). By one estimate, some 90% of the money spent by the GOI over the past three years has been on operating rather investment expenditures. With this in mind, it is the prospect of being unable to fund operating budget which currently has Iraq’s political class transfixed. Quite simply, making the payroll is a matter of political survival.

Allowing Selective Export of Kurdish Oil

During the past few years Iraq has consistently been able to raise crude oil export revenues and deliver record budgets despite average daily oil production only growing modestly. In this context, the federal government was under little pressure to increase oil production by passing an Oil Law. The KRG, perceiving the development of the Kurdish oil sector as fundamental to consolidating the long term future of the Kurdistan Region, was far more eager to attract international investment and develop oil production, but not at the cost of sacrificing the principle of regional autonomy to sign oil contracts. Having instead chosen to proceed in signing contracts on its own, the KRG faces a major strategic quandary. Namely, it needs access centrally controlled pipeline networks to export its crude oil.

At the current juncture, with the precipitous drop in oil prices, incentives have changed. The GOI has an obvious need to increase oil production levels to compensate for falling prices but lacks the immediate means to do so. Iraq’s Ministry of Oil has announced that it intends to sign long term risk service contracts to rehabilitate five major producing oilfields in June 2009, but these would not have an appreciable impact on production for a further eighteen months. This leaves the GOI with one way to achieve a near term boost in oil production and limit the damage to its “payroll”: allow those Kurdish oil contracts that are close to production to begin exporting. The KRG and its investors are similarly eager to resolve the export issue in order to begin obtaining a return on their investment. Both sides therefore had a compelling interest in the reported agreement to allow exports from Taq Taq and Tawke fields in Erbil and Dahuk respectively.

It remains to be seen whether this agreement represents the first step towards a broader deal or is a short-term marriage of convenience. There are still deep seated reasons that will make passing an Oil Law challenging, but with the financial crisis there is a sense of urgency to reach some form of accommodation that was previously absent.

Policy Lessons

Is this account of how the worldwide financial crisis has led to the KRG and GOI agreeing to allow exports from certain Kurdish oil contracts merely a curiosity or does it hold a wider policy lesson? One possible conclusion is that any viable national reconciliation strategy for Iraq has to succeed in reframing key disputes in a way that addresses Iraqi stakeholders’ underlying interests or actually alters those interests themselves. The financial crisis is an external shock, but it demonstrates how a change in incentives can lead to progress on oil issues against the grain of worsening Arab – Kurdish relations.

With respect to oil, the political strategy of the US-led military Surge does not appear to meet the standard of addressing the parties’ framework of interests. The rationale of the Surge was to create the political space necessary to enable national reconciliation through stabilizing the security environment. However, the KRG approaches the oil issue from a perspective of consolidating its autonomy and seeking to limit the central government’s ability to finance its military. GOI concerns relate to ensuring the territorial integrity of Iraq and safeguarding the financial basis for a viable central government. Even as the Surge played a role in sharply reducing violence levels in Baghdad, Anbar and elsewhere, it is difficult to see how additional “space” has affected these fundamental interests and translated into incentives for progress on the Oil Law.

This can perhaps be illustrated through examples of policy choices that could affect the actors’ interests and incentives. These possibly include conditional US security guarantees to the KRG on the one hand and seeking ways to address the threat to the territorial integrity of Iraq that the GOI perceives to result from regionalization of oil on the other. One means to accomplish the latter would be to support Iraq’s Constitutional Review Process, and thereby help provide Iraqis an opportunity to re-examine the control over oil which the Constitution would grant newly formed regions in Iraq’s South. This is all the more pressing following the oil wealthy Basra governorate recently initiating the process to become a region.

The ultimate purpose of this exploration of the policy lessons of the link between the financial crisis and oil negotiations in Iraq is not to advocate for either of these options, each of which require a much more detailed treatment than received here. Rather this post seeks to highlight the changed playing field for Oil Law negotiations resulting from the financial crisis and to identify the kind of thinking about interest altering interventions that is required if the US and international community want to help build upon the recent developments related to allowing selective Kurdish oil exports. The fact that an agreement on initial Kurdish oil exporting has happened at all suggests, somewhat counter intuitively, that it is potentially impactful moment to engage in thinking about how to facilitate progress towards a broader Arab - Kurdish agreement on oil that is a necessary part of the foundation of any stable Iraqi state.